It's still a work in progress, but there are still things to be learned from the Pittsburgh loss nearly two weeks ago.

In preparation and on the field, Virginia Tech is trying to make sure a loss like that doesn't happen again this season.

"From the Pittsburgh loss, we just kinda learned that if you don't come to play with intensity every week, then you can be beat," junior cornerback Antone Exum said. "These are college teams with players on scholarship as well. Once you start feeling too good about yourself, you can get knocked off. But I really like the way we bounced back. This Bowling Green game, we could've had our heads down, but we came out and tried to prove a point."

Though the Hokies righted a lot of wrongs in defeating Bowling Green Saturday, they'll have more challenges with Cincinnati Saturday. The Bearcats' spread offense will be one that's a little different from the four teams Virginia Tech has seen this season.

Exum said the Hokies will again try to apply what they've learned on film and been working to correct since Pittsburgh.

"You have to attack those guys, guys that are really good in the open field and can kinda make you miss," Exum said. "You've gotta attack those guys and kinda keep 'em in a tight box, keep 'em in a phone booth, so to speak just so they have less room to make you miss. During the course of the game, they'll probably make one or two guys miss, but if we do a good job of running to the ball, keeping those guys in a phone booth, then the long plays shouldn't be there."

One player Virginia Tech will be watching closely is junior quarterback [db]Munchie Legaux[/db]. At 6'5" 199 pounds, he's a mobile quarterback with similarities to Hokies junior quarterback Logan Thomas.

"As far as size is concerned, both of them are similar, both pretty tall guys," Exum said. "They're both mobile as well, can move out of the pocket. We haven't started watching too much of him throwing the ball, but Logan's pretty accurate and I've heard that Munchie is pretty accurate as well. Going against Logan in practice, that's definitely gonna help us out, just to get a feel of how it's gonna be in the game."

This week will be a better indicator of if and how Virginia Tech has rebounded from its lone loss of the season.

Though the Hokies had a seemingly convincing 37-0 win over Bowling Green, Exum isn't quite convinced yet. But he sees that Virginia Tech is slowly getting to where it hopes to be.

"We still did a couple little things wrong, technical things," Exum said. "But from the Pittsburgh game, we got a lot better, just playing fundamentally and doing our assignments, everybody doing their job. Last year, this defense, we got better as the year went on. I feel like game by game we just continued to progress. If that's something that we can do this year, then by the end of the season or sooner than later, we'll be that defense that we think we can be."